Read Or Dream: Truth and fantasy
by shanejayell
Summary: Maggie discovers that certain things may be true, after all. Post ROD TV, Shoujoai, Read or Dream manga
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters from Read or Die and ROD the TV, I'm just borrowing 'em for a bit. Also, this story has spoilers for the end of ROD the TV and the Read or Dream manga.

Read Or Dream: Truth and fantasy.

Part One

Maggie Mui smiled shyly as her two sisters returned to the houseboat on the river. They had inherited it from their former employer Mr. Lee, and the waves gently rocked the heavily book laden craft in a comforting way. "Welcome home," the tall black haired woman said from where she was sitting in the living room, her red eyes gently welcoming.

"Hi Maggie," Michelle Cheung rushed right over to hug her impulsively as the busty blonde said, "Junior says hi, by the way." Michelle was technically the oldest of the trio and was their narmal leader, though Anita would probably debate that. She was cheerful, good natured and kind, though her absent mindedness could get her into trouble. Michelle looked Maggie up and down before asking, "Have you been getting taller?"

"Six feet is tall enough," Maggie said with some dignity, her pants and plain t-shirt a bit wrinkled from sitting there on the floor to read. The truth was she was very tall, and it was something she occassionally felt self conscious about. Still, she was what she was and Maggie had become content with that. Mostly, anyway.

"Why can't I ever grow?" Anita King complained cheerfully, the younger pink haired girl drinking straight from a bottle of milk. Anita was growing into a model tomboy, though to be honest she already had most of those qualities. Since they had settled down in Tokyo Anita was on the recruitment list of every school sports team and club, but she frustrated them all by stubbornly preferring to hang out in the library with Hisami.

"Give it time," Michelle chuckled as she went back for the bags of books they had bought. As she carried them over to a nearly full bookshelf her eyes brightened a bit as she remembered something. Michelle looked at Maggie, "Oh, did Sensei call you yet?"

"Sumiregawa-sensei?" Maggie asked, mildly surprised. When Michelle nodded her confirmation she continued "No, why?"

"She said that she received a message for you," Michelle said excitedly. She pouted a bit as she added, "She wouldn't tell me what it was, too."

"Really?" Maggie blinked, her mind racing as she wondered what the message might be. She walked over to the door, slipping her shoes on as she looked at her sisters and asked, "Would you mind if I go over there...?"

"Eh, go on," Anita waved it off casually as she said, "I'll make dinner this time."Anita added with a grin, "You'll owe me one, tho."

"Yay, curry!" Michelle smiled. Maggie bit back a chuckle, knowing that Anita's cooking skills were still pretty much limited to curry and hamburger.

"Thank you," Maggie told them both as she gave a little bow and left.

The walk over to Nenene Sumiregawa's nearby apartment was a quiet one, the afternoon sun shining down on her pleasantly as Maggie considered her current life. She, her two sisters Michelle and Anita and their friend Yomiko Readman were running the new Paper Sisters Detective Agency, recovering books and lost pets as needed. Michelle and Nancy were working together to watch over Junior, Anita and her classmate Hisami were as close as ever, Nenene and Yomiko had moved in together and Maggie... well, Maggie regularly found herself reading in a little storage room put aside for her on the house boat.

Maggie sighed to herself softly as she walked through the park by the apartment building. It wasn't that she resented the deep friendships that her big and little sisters had found, it was just that she wished she could also find something like that for herself. Yes, Nenene was her friend too, but Yomiko would always be first in her eyes...

"It's about time you got here," Nenene said with an affectionate sort of grumpiness as Maggie arrived, her square glasses sliding down her nose. The brown haired woman was at least a foot shorter than Maggie but somehow she always intimidated her. Maggie guessed it was her intelligence plus her dynamo like energy....

"I'm sorry," Maggie said sheepishly, wondering if Nenene had plans that her being late had disrupted. Her thoughts began to race as she thought of all the things that might go wrong, then she noticed Nenene's wry smile.

"I was kidding," Nenene laughed as she led her inside, the apartment looking much neater than when she and her sisters had crashed there. The layout was still the same, with the big TV, couches and center table, the only difference was the piles of books sitting around.

Maggie smiled a bit, knowing that it annoyed Nenene a bit as she repeated a bit teasingly, "Sorry."

Nenene snorted softly as they carefully went through the piles of books between them and the stairway. "So, back when you told me about your problems finding work in Hong Kong I got to thinking," she said as they reached the stairs.

"Yes?" Maggie dodged a pile of books on the landing. 'Yomiko is reading about as much as usual,' she thought as they went up stairs to the second floor. Nenene's workroom was up there as were the bedrooms that her sisters had shared.

"Well, after some consideration I thought I should bring you all into the twenty first century," Nenene explained as she opened up her office door upstairs, "and made the Paper Sisters Detective Agency a web page."

"Like on the internet," Maggie said tentatively, almost making it a question.

It wasn't that Maggie knew nothing about computers or the internet, but she couldn't really claim to have any expertese in it, either. For a bibliophile like herself, reading words on a screen somehow lacked... something. Holding a book in her hands, smelling the paper, ink and occassionally dust was heaven to someone like her.

"Yeah," Nenene lead the way into her office.

Unlike the little piles of books that now were scattered through the house this office was messy in it's own unique way, the workroom of a focused and intense individual. Reference books sat on the desk, piled up awkwardly, while papers covered with hand written notes covered many of the available surfaces. The couch no longer had a blanket and pillow on it, instead covered with more references and occassionally odd items like a sailor style school uniform.

"What's the sailor fuku for?" Maggie just had to ask.

Surprisingly, Nenene blushed slightly as she coughed in surprise. "Uhm," she cleared her throat, "I needed to check a reference, and Yomiko modeled it for me."

Maggie decided she didn't need to know any more as she replied faintly, "Right."

"Anyway," Nenene changed the subject as she sat down at the computer, pausing to shift books over so that Maggie could see better, "I had a friend set up a 'Paper Sisters Detective Agency' page with your photos and a summary of the kinds of jobs you do."

"So what happened?" Maggie asked, sensing that somehow something had happened, though she wasn't sure exactly what.

"A few days after it went up I got this message," and Nenene clicked on her browser.

First Nenene's home page came up on the screen, then she went via a link to a simple but attractively designed site with the Paper Sister's photos on it and a banner above reading 'Paper Sisters Detective Agency.' Clicking a link on the page she accessed a mail program, typing in a name and password to unlock it.

"Hey, that's my name there," Maggie blinked as she saw her name attached to one of several images of file folders, all lined up in a row.

"It's a email for you," Nenene clicked on one, causing it to open to reveal a message.

Oddly right on the top of the message it said who it was from, and Maggie's eyes widened as sherecognized the name. Leaning forward she murmured, "Fay?"

"So you do know this girl?" Nenene repeated, looking up at Maggie in surprise. Her lips quirked in surprise, "Oooh, hiding a girlfriend somewhere?"

"It's not like that," Maggie stumbled, blushing, furiously under the other woman's amused gaze.

Nenene just grinned back at her, clearly enjoying seeing Maggie be so flustered.

To be continued....

Note: Yes, this has been posted before. Just expanding and rewriting a bit.


	2. Chapter 2

Read Or Dream: Truth and fantasy.

Part Two

"Tell me about it," Nenene gently invited as she waved Maggie to sit on a open spot on the couch.

"Uhm," Maggie blushed charmingly once again, then she began to explain.

Back when the sisters had been living in Hong Kong Maggie had been out on a walk, lost in her thoughts. Passing by a house Maggie had been hit in the head by a paper airplane, one that had been created from a page torn from a book. Realizing they were coming from a second story window, Maggie had called up to whoever was making the planes, then surprisingly been invited inside. There she had met Fay, a blind young woman whom Maggie had found a almost instant rapport with.

"Only you could meet someone that way," Nenene shook her head with amusement.

"We talked, and she asked me to read to her," Maggie remembered. "I read books for her for awhile, even helped encourage her to have a operation to help her vision," Maggie mused as her expression became sad, "but..."

"Yeah?" Nenene prompted her, clearly quite engaged by the story.

"When my sisters and I found out our pasts were fiction created by Dokusensha, I thought that included my meeting Fay, too," Maggie said quietly, not wanting to dwell too much on that. Learning that much of their past was fiction had hurt Maggie deeply, and only the realization that the love of her sisters was a separate thing had helped them get through it.

"Obviously not all of it," Nenene gestured to the email.

"I should see her," Maggie got up then stiffened as she softly groaned, "but they're back in Hong Kong!" He eyes widened in horror as she remembered Dokusensha sinking the island, wondering if her friend had drowned with all the others....

"It's all right," Nenene took Maggie's hands, squeezing them in her own gently.

"Huh?" Maggie looked at her in surprise, startled out of her spiraling depression.

"Apparently Fay's mother moved them to Japan after the operation," Nenene revealed as she gestured to the email, "or so it says here."

"Right," Maggie sat back down to read.

Fay wrote about recovering from the operation, their visit afterwards and her leaving for a second set of treatments. 'That's why I didn't see her later,' Maggie thought. She was warmly surprised to hear that Fay missed her, she talked about moving to Japan and even...

"What?" Nenene noticed Maggie's sudden blush and glanced at the screen, seeing the section she just read. "Oooh, a kiss!" she teased.

"We nearly kissed the one time," Maggie blushed as she confessed, "Fay sort of wrote a script from the books I was reading to her."

"Clever girl," Nenene said admiringly, "I should have tried that with Yomiko back in the day." As Maggie blushed again she asked, "What are you going to do now?"

"I'd like to see her," Maggie admitted shyly, then scratched at her cheek nervously as she asked, "do you think she'd want me to?"

"Reading that email, yes," Nenene nodded firmly, looking rather amused by Maggie's bashfulness. Gazing up at Maggie sympathetically she offered, "Do you want me to help you write her a email back?"

"Please," Maggie smiled as she sighed in relief. She looked at the computer warily, "I know they're harmless but...."

With a spring in her step Maggie returned to their home, a smile tugging at her lips. She had told Fay her address and phone number, and felt reasonably certain that she'd contact her. Crossing the bridge and opening the door to their houseboat she called out, "I'm home!"

"Welcome back," Michelle called back, presumedly from the kitchen where she was washing up after dinner, "Junior is here, visiting with Anita."

"Hi," Junior looked up, the blue haired boy smiling at her shyly. The son of the 'evil' clone of Nancy Mukahari he had been raised by the British Library to be a agent and eventually the host to the spirit of Mr. Gentleman. He had started out as a enemy and ultimately became a friend, at least in part because of Anita's influence.

"I have some good news," Maggie said as she took off her shoes, "my friend Fay from Hong Kong contacted me, she's in Tokyo and wants to meet."

"I'm so happy," Maggie clapped her hands as she rushed out of the kitchen and gave Maggie a hug with soapy arms.

"I'm happy for you, Mags." Anita nodded seriously. "I'd like to meet her," Anita added thoughtfully, "we need to be sure she's right for you."

"Anita's right," Michelle nodded vigorously as she instructed Maggie, "you need to bring Fay over as soon as possible."

"Let's see how it goes," Maggie blushed brightly.

"Yeah, I remember bringing Hisami over," Anita smiled slightly.

"Was it bad?" Junior asked curiously.

"You have no idea," Anita sighed.

It had been pretty funny, Maggie remembered. Poor Hisami had been rather overwhelmed by how much Michelle liked her, even at one point asking if they could make Hisami a Paper Sister too. Poor Anita had to literally boot Michelle to get her to let Hisami go.

"It does make me wonder," Michelle said as she took Maggie's covered dinner out of the oven, "how many of our other adventures were real, and which were made up by Dokusensha." She carried it over to the table, "I wonder if there's any way we could find out?"

"Well, at least we can be sure that the whole writing on the Moon thing was false," Anita said to them firmly.

"Writing on the moon? You mean when it said," Junior frowned as he remembered, "See you later, Anita?" He looked at them curiously, "Do you know something about that?"

You could hear a pin drop as all three girls looked at him in shock. "Dwah?" Anita managed to get out, blinking.

"I always wondered if that had something to do with you," Junior admitted after a moment, still looking at the stunned girls curiously.

The three Paper Sisters mostly ignored him, looking at each other as their minds raced. "We never told him..." Anita began weakly.

"And there's no reason Dokusensha would let him know," Michelle continued with a cute frown, 'or implant the memory into him.'

"Which means it was real," Maggie whispered, her eyes wide as all of the possible implications began to sink in.

"What was real?" Junior asked impatiently.

"Hey!" Anita squealed in surprise as she was bodily picked up by Maggie and Michelle and then marched over to her school desk. "What's the big idea?!" she demanded.

"Start writing," Michelle handed her a pen while Maggie found a empty notebook and set in down in front of her.

"Why?" Anita blinked, not quite having caught up as fast as her sisters had..

"Ms Alien said she wanted to read your novel," Maggie reminded her patiently, "and we only have ninety eight years or so till she's coming back!"

Junior shook his head as he muttered, "I never know what's going on."

End

Notes: I LOVED the Fay/Maggie bit in Read or Dream the manga, and was very disapointed when I found out in ROD the TV that the manga series was a dream. So, I decided to write my way out of that...lol. The pairings are Anita/Hisami, Yomiko/Nenene and Maggie/Fay. Michelle is helping take care of Junior with Nancy, but mostly because she developed a maternal bond with him, not because she's dating Nancy.

Oh, about the alien bit... In Chapter 4 of Read or Dream Anita saves a girl whom it turns out is a alien. She's a inspector who's job is to destroy the Earth for not progressing fast enough. Maggie and Michelle try to talk her out of it with great books, while Anita uses force. Intrigued by Anita the alien girl challenges Anita to write a book, saying that she'll be back in 100 years. She also leaves a message on the moon saying "See you later, Anita."


End file.
